I am probably the most guilty in looking at multiple forums to harvest as much information as possible. That being said, it's important to understand the underlying theme of each forum.
The MA forum has had a terrible stretch of winters. Probably due to climbing global temps. Therefore they will put out a lot of hypothesis including the SER dominating everything.
It may also lead to over exaggeration of one influence.
However, if the SER theory was true there would be a lot more reliance on this factor, and in reality would be our #1 teleconnection over anything. Forecasts would be a lot easier and we can say the PAC will be overwhelmed by SER 90% of the time.
Now let's take this winter and break down the background.
We have a la Nina. La Ninas tend to have an RNA and therefore a SER. If this was a coupled El Nino and the SER was raging I would be concerned. We are SUPPOSED to have a raging RNA in a strong coupled La Nina.
Let's see what happens in the next Coupled El Nino. If this SER theory is true, we will find out over the next few years but IMO the SER is a downstream effect from the RNA/PAC